Official Report 807KB pdf
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S7M-00788, in the name of Lloyd Melville, on celebrating Angus berries and Scotland’s soft fruit sector. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament celebrates Scotland’s soft fruit sector and its important contribution to the rural economy, food and drink industry and the country’s reputation for high-quality produce; recognises Angus as one of Scotland’s leading berry-growing areas and applauds the growers, seasonal workers, packers, processors and retailers who bring Scottish strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries to consumers; notes that almost 2,000 hectares of land in Scotland are devoted to soft fruit production, including around 1,000 hectares for strawberries; welcomes the contribution of Angus Growers, the Arbroath-based grower-owned producer organisation, and its members; commends the family-run Balhungie Berry Farm, near Monifieth, which Lloyd Melville MSP recently visited, for growing and selling fresh local berries and connecting people with Angus agriculture; welcomes initiatives such as the Angus Berry Trail, which link berry production with farm shops, hospitality and tourism; acknowledges what it sees as the challenges facing growers, including rising costs, unpredictable weather and access to seasonal labour; notes the belief that more should be done to promote the quality, provenance and nutritional benefits of Scottish berries; further notes the calls for governments, tourism bodies, retailers and public sector caterers to work with growers to promote Scottish berries at home and abroad, including through greater use of seasonal berries in public sector menus, and wishes everyone involved in Scotland’s berry sector continued success.
17:44
I thank colleagues across the chamber who have supported the motion, giving us the opportunity to celebrate one of Scotland’s great food industries. I also thank the stakeholders who have come along tonight and who met with me and the Minister for Agriculture, Marine and the Islands prior to the debate.
There are some arguments in Parliament that it takes a fair bit of work to make, but the case for a freshly picked Angus raspberry is not one of them. It is one of those rare arguments where the evidence itself can be eaten. Growing up in and around berry country means that you develop quite the appreciation for a good berry and a low tolerance for a bad one. When you visit a place like Balhungie berry farm near Monifieth, what strikes you most is just how much detail, work and love sits behind something that many of us simply pick up from a supermarket shelf or a farm shop.
NFU Scotland estimates that Scotland’s berry industry contributes more than £188 million to our economy. The sector uses only around 1 per cent of our agricultural land but punches way above its weight, delivering up to 16 per cent of our agricultural output. That is a remarkable contribution for the humble berry to make, and Angus sits right at the heart of it. We have many family businesses, and we have Angus Growers and Appetite for Angus, which bring producers together and help them to reach new markets and promote the local berry story. Places such as the farm shop at Balhungie help to connect local people directly with the farms and the farmers producing their food. That really matters.
Berry growing is not just important to the Angus economy; it is integral to the character of Angus, woven into our identity and heritage.
As someone who grew up in Angus and spent my childhood summers picking those berries, I recognise that the member’s point about berry growing being integral to who we are, as people from Angus, is absolutely vital. Would he agree that it has a huge value not only to the economy and to Scotland’s food and drink sector, but to our heritage and the character of our communities?
Absolutely, and there is a huge amount of work to be done to promote the heritage aspect of the berries. I was, unfortunately, too young to be picking berries and was not sent—
Members: Oh!
I am sorry to put that on the record, but the debate is as much about the future as it is about heritage—[Laughter.] Oh, goodness me. I will move swiftly on.
The industry is changing and innovating as well. Growers are using new technology, including robots travelling through crops at night using ultraviolet light to help control powdery mildew. At the James Hutton Institute, decades of research and breeding continue to improve fruit quality, disease resistance and productivity. Champion varieties are growing in Angus, such as the Monet raspberry and the Magnum strawberry, which I had the privilege of trying right off the crop at Balhungie—I can tell you they were something else.
However, being good at growing something does not automatically translate into big profits. It is easy to see full supermarket shelves and assume that the industry is doing just fine, but strong sales do not necessarily mean strong margins, especially when you pick up a punnet only to find that those berries have travelled thousands of miles to sit on the supermarket shelf. Indeed, growers are making decisions about plants, tunnels, machinery and labour months before they know what the weather will do, what the harvest will look like or what price they will receive. They are doing that while dealing with rising costs and increasingly unpredictable weather, from flooding and drought to late frosts.
Of course, they are doing it with uncertainty about who will actually pick the berries that they grow. Access to seasonal labour remains important for businesses in my constituency and across Scotland. Brexit ended the free movement on which many of those businesses had relied, and Scottish growers have had to adapt to the consequences. Although immigration policy is reserved to the United Kingdom Government, the system that is now in place has to recognise the reality of businesses whose workforce requirements are highly seasonal. Those growers need certainty before the season begins. We should also take a moment to recognise the people who come to Scotland to do that work. Quite simply, these berries could not be harvested without them, and they should be welcome, valued and treated fairly. If we want Scottish berries on our shelves, we should never lose sight of the people whose work puts them there.
Of course, producing the fruit is only half the job—growers need markets for it and a fair return when they sell it. NFU Scotland again gives us an interesting picture of what is happening on supermarket shelves. Across surveys in May, June and August, an average of 56 per cent of berries were domestically sourced, which shows that, even across the summer growing season, almost half of the berries on our shelves were imported. Nobody is suggesting that Scotland can supply every berry on the shelf all year round, but, at the height of our growing season, we should surely expect Scottish fruit to take pride of place. People who want to buy local should be able to see clearly what it is that they are buying, which means proper labelling for county and country of origin and clear in-store branding. Growers need confidence that, once they have spent the money and grown the crop, supermarkets will take it at a reasonable price.
Government has a key role to play, too. Our good food nation ambitions should be visible on our plates. When Scottish berries are in season, we should be looking for every practical opportunity to ensure that more of them are served in our schools, hospitals and care settings. That means planning procurement around seasonal availability and making opportunities genuinely accessible to Scottish growers and producer organisations. There would be something quite odd about celebrating Scotland as a great food-producing nation while our public kitchens cannot buy food that is being grown just next door.
I hope, therefore, that the minister might address a few points in responding to the debate. We now have a public sector food procurement task force. What more can it be doing to help schools, hospitals and care settings source Scottish produce when that is in season? How can the Scottish Government continue to support the investment, research and innovation that have made the industry so successful to date? How is the Government working with growers now on the pressures that they are telling us about, from labour availability and rising costs to securing fair and reliable markets for their produce?
I began with the humble Angus raspberry, which—to make a bold claim—is simply the best in the world, but that success does not happen by chance. Behind every punnet is a grower who is making investment decisions months before knowing what the season will bring; workers who are there when the crop is ready; and scientists and researchers who are developing better ways to grow it and new varieties for us to eat. There are businesses and communities across Angus and Scotland whose prosperity is connected to what comes out of those fields.
I do not think that there will be much disagreement tonight, although members may disagree on which region produces the best berries. Nevertheless, I hope that we can find consensus on the importance of this vital industry to our economy, our heritage and our future. We should decide tonight what we can do to support the industry by backing growers, opening up markets and eating and shopping local.
That is how we will make sure that Angus berries remain one of Scotland’s great food success stories for many years to come. I look forward to hearing the rest of the debate.
17:53
I thank my neighbouring Angus constituency colleague, Lloyd Melville, for bringing the debate to the chamber—yes, the Angus mafia are here. When people think of Scottish agriculture, they often picture barley, beef, lamb or dairy, but today, as he has said, we are celebrating another extraordinary part of Scotland’s rural economy: our soft fruit sector.
Across my constituency of Angus North and Mearns, which covers both the north of Angus and the south of Aberdeenshire, growers are producing some of the finest soft fruits and berries to be found anywhere. Scotland’s long summer daylight, cooler days and slower-ripening fruit give our berries their distinctive sweetness, flavour and quality. That success is visible in businesses in my constituency such as Castleton farm at Fordoun; Charleton farm near Montrose; and North Mains of Dun and Southesk farms near Brechin. Those are employers, innovators, visitor destinations and educators, and they are anchors of rural community life.
Castleton farm at Fordoun is a striking example. Its northerly location allows fruit to ripen slowly and develop exceptional sweetness. Harvesting fruit for much of the year, it grows strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and cherries, and it has built a strong farm shop, cafe and product range around fruit that is all grown, picked and processed in situ.
Likewise, Charleton farm on the edge of Montrose shows how soft fruit connects people with food, place and nature. Through pick-your-own fruit, a farm shop, food, events and educational experiences, it helps families and young people understand where food comes from, which is important and why food security and environmental care matter.
The sector is built on science and innovation. Polytunnels, table-top growing systems, precision irrigation and fertigation have extended the season and improved quality. As Mr Melville mentioned, that matters because Scotland’s berry industry contributes around £188 million to the Scottish economy and supports rural jobs in packing, haulage, hospitality, tourism, food manufacturing and research. When we buy Scottish berries, we support a whole network of rural livelihoods, but we must be honest about the pressures that growers are facing. Soft fruit is labour intensive and requires skilled seasonal workers, careful hand picking, fast grading, rapid chilling and demanding quality control. Labour, energy, packaging, fertiliser and transport costs have all recently risen, while late frosts, heat, flooding and water scarcity can disrupt harvests and damage yields.
There is also the challenge of market power, which has been exacerbated since Brexit. Major supermarkets provide vital routes to market, but they have enormous influence over prices, specifications and contracts. Fixed pricing can leave growers absorbing rising costs, while strict cosmetic standards mean that perfectly good berries can be rejected or downgraded simply because they are the wrong shape, size or colour. That is why alternative routes to market are so important. Market gardens, produce-box schemes, farm shops, cafes, pick-your-own experiences, independent greengrocers, hospitality, processors, distilleries, brewers and food manufacturers can help growers to capture more value and reduce food waste. Secondary-grade fruit can become jams, juices, purees, spirits, beers, desserts and other high-value ingredients.
Today, therefore, I make a simple point: Scotland’s soft fruit sector is a success story, but it is not one that we can take for granted. It needs fair contracts, visible Scottish labelling, genuine retailer partnership, continued investment in research and infrastructure, and public support for local produce. Above all, it needs us to recognise the skill, risk and commitment behind every berry that is grown here.
The next time we see Scottish strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries or cherries on a shelf, in a farm shop, in a school meal, in a restaurant dessert or in a family kitchen, let us remember what they represent: innovation, resilience, rural employment, environmental stewardship and the very best of Scotland’s natural larder. It is a sector worth celebrating, worth supporting and worth protecting.
17:58
I thank the member for Angus South for lodging the motion and bringing the debate to the chamber. The soft fruit industry is both an essential part of Scotland’s world-class horticultural sector and an important component of Scotland’s, and Britain’s, domestic food production.
As the motion alludes, our largest-scale commercial soft fruit industry is constituted primarily in Angus as well as in Perthshire and Fife. However, there are examples of soft fruit production across other parts of the country, including in my region of South Scotland. That is particularly the case in the Scottish Borders, where there is a long-standing tradition, with McGregor Farms of Berwickshire having farmed strawberries in the 1970s and 1980s, and onward into the new century. It is mostly keenly felt and seen with the notable family-run Border Berries company at Rutherford farm, between Kelso and St Boswells, which has been an active soft fruit producer since the 1960s. I know that the member for Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale knows how good Border Berries is. It is good to have a bit of cross-party consensus in the chamber once in a while. To this day, Borders Berries continues to produce fantastic strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries and tayberries, which constitute some of the finest seasonal produce that we all love and enjoy in rural Scotland.
It is incredibly important that we continue to highlight the fantastic produce of Scotland’s soft fruit sector, as well as the potential for added value to the rural visitor economy through efforts such as the Angus berry trail, which the motion mentions. Indeed, the success of the pick-your-own fruit model can be seen at the aforementioned Border Berries, which is South Scotland’s largest such business. That model is not only a great business venture but a very educational place to enable younger people to understand where their food comes from and that it does not simply materialise on our supermarket shelves.
The motion also highlights the ongoing challenges that the sector faces. I note with concern that the area of the industry has fallen from roughly 2,200 hectares in 2020 to a figure that now, by some estimates, is approaching 1,900 hectares in 2026. Given the soft fruit industry’s important role in Scottish food production, those challenges raise a broader and important point around support for our nation’s long-term food production strategy. In these weeks after central Government told the general public to consider stockpiling tinned food due to threats to our sources of food supply, it is clear that we are living in an era when the end of the just-in-time supply chain increasingly applies to food as well. Thus, it is increasingly important that we address food production as a matter of national strategic resilience—our soft fruit sector has an important role to play in that—and that Government policy focuses on food production when addressing rural affairs and the broader agricultural and horticultural sectors.
The issue of the declining industry area size for the Scottish soft fruit sector corresponds with a need for us to have an honest conversation around Scotland’s land use and to recognise that Scotland’s land cannot be all things to all people. In my mind, that means having food production at the front and centre of the conversation and, importantly, ensuring that Scottish farmers and producers are not incentivised to take any land out of food production for other policy agendas and priorities.
The member touched on changing weather patterns, and I think that there is a recognition that that is happening and is affecting the agricultural and horticultural sector. However, it is important that we take a pragmatic and realistic approach to what that entails. In moving away from climate mitigation policies such as herd reduction to sustained climate adaptation, we need to realise the limits of our own agency. Scottish agriculture and horticulture will not be able to challenge the global issue that is climate change, but they can and should be able to adapt to those challenges.
A vital but often under-discussed part of our ability to feed the nation is the bottleneck around production, with particular issues around meat processing sites having been particularly felt in the ongoing pork crisis that I know, as a member for the North East region, is pertinent to members on other benches.
Of course, the wider debate around Scotland’s ability to feed itself and the matter of national strategic resilience goes far beyond the scope of this debate, but it is important that we recognise the role that the soft fruit sector plays in that and touch on the commonality of issues faced by the sector and the broader food production sector.
To conclude, the motion raises important points, and I agree that it is vital that we continue to celebrate and promote the fantastic work and produce of the soft fruit sector. I, for one, look forward to continuing to enjoy our fantastic seasonal produce.
18:02
I thank Lloyd Melville for bringing the motion to the chamber. I want to spend my time talking about the workers who pick the fruit that we celebrate—those on whom the soft fruit industry depends but who do not get much mention. For example, there is no mention in the motion of the low wages that are paid for their physically exhausting work; of the restrictive visa conditions that make it difficult for them to move to another farm and another employer if the conditions and pay there are better; of what the Worker Support Centre calls a “culture of fear” on some Scottish farms, with workers being referred to by a number—not their name—being shouted at for speaking their native language and being harassed for taking toilet breaks or being unable to meet targets; or of the outrageously poor accommodation conditions that they endure.
Lloyd Melville promoted his motion today with a beautifully and slickly produced social media video, complete with drone footage of a very sunny fruit farm in Angus, in my region. The conditions, as far as we could see from what the video showed us, seemed good. It was a really good piece of promotion. However, that is not the reality for many agricultural workers in the sector. Last year, the BBC exposed shocking conditions at a soft fruit farm in Angus. Workers reported freezing conditions in their accommodation.
Would the member accept that denigrating the entire sector because of a particular case is not helpful to the sector? Does she accept that, in reality, the sector is one of the better-paying parts of the agriculture sector and provides a hell of a lot of work for people who cannot get it in the areas that they come from?
I am highlighting the concerns, exposed by the BBC last year, about shocking conditions that exist in Scotland, which we could be taking action on. [Interruption.]
Minister, you must not heckle.
Workers report freezing conditions in their accommodation, with one worker reporting that they needed to sleep fully clothed due to the cold. A video shows carpets so damp that water seeps out when the workers walk on them. There are gaps in roofs and floors, exposing the workers to the open air.
To add insult to injury, that accommodation is not part of the job but must be paid for. On the minimum guaranteed 32 hours per week, at the national minimum wage of £11.44 per hour, the £9.99 a day accommodation charges represent 19 per cent of a worker’s net pay. High additional charges reported by workers for electricity, fuel and services such as laundry and travel mean that wages fall below the legal minimum. Many of the 61 workers that the Worker Support Centre supported with dismissal cases in 2024 also faced very short notice of eviction from accommodation, with some of them becoming homeless.
The basic problem is that the increase in renters’ rights around quality, rent control and eviction largely do not apply to seasonal agricultural accommodation. Only one UK local authority has requested powers to inspect caravan accommodation for agricultural workers and, even then, the Angus inspection scheme does not apply to the inside of the accommodation. The minimum tolerable repair standards that apply to other housing apply to agricultural accommodation in caravans only if local authorities enact byelaws to make that the case, and the Worker Support Centre has not found any local authority that has made such byelaws. Local authorities, the fair work agency, the Health and Safety Executive, the Scottish Government, the agricultural wages enforcement team and the UK visas and immigration compliance unit are all involved. However, workers are slipping through the gaps, with nobody taking proper responsibility for standards.
I am proud that my colleague Ariane Burgess worked so hard in the previous session to raise the issue. Her parliamentary questions prompted the Government to announce new statutory accommodation standards for all seasonal workers. However, that was in November 2025. This year’s programme for government has been and gone, and calls for it to include the new standards went unheeded. I therefore ask the minister to tell us when the Government will follow through on that promise. When will we respect seasonal workers’ human rights to warm and safe homes? When will we adequately house the workers without whom the soft fruits industry that we celebrate this evening would be nothing?
I want to be able to celebrate the whole of the industry. However, when workers face the situation that they do, we cannot.
18:08
I very much regret that Maggie Chapman has decided to use this debate to characterise this brilliant sector of Scotland’s economy in such derisory terms. I can tell the chamber that, having visited many berry farms over the years, that is simply not an accurate depiction of the workers who work in those places.
Does Stephen Kerr agree that our fantastic agriculture and horticulture industries face enough challenges without people running their name through the mud? Maggie Chapman was without a positive word to say about an important employer in her region.
It was incredibly disappointing not to hear very much of a positive nature in that speech, although Maggie Chapman will forgive me if I say that I often feel that way about her contributions in the chamber.
I am proud to number myself among the Angus mafia, which, truth be told, is a sizeable group in this Parliament. Angus is always punching above its weight. In my political experience, it is interesting to discover who was born in Angus, where they now are and what they are doing.
I was very pleased to support Lloyd Meville’s motion, because Angus berries are, indeed, one of the great success stories of Scottish agriculture. They are renowned for their quality and there is a huge demand for them. They are produced by growers who have shown incredible ingenuity over many years.
For me, this is personal. I agree with Kirsten Oswald, who, until tonight, I did not know was a daughter of Angus. As a boy—Lloyd Melville needs to listen to this—I also went to the berries. To be frank, I cannot pretend that I always went to the berries with enormous enthusiasm, but my dad had a very firm view that I needed to learn how to work, and my mum strongly supported his position. In the summer, off I went to pick the raspberries and, earlier in the season, the strawberries. Then, when it came time for the tattie holidays—that is what we called them in Angus in those days—I was again packed off to the fields.
I well remember filling baskets, punnets and buckets in the long rows and lines of raspberries. I do not know what they were going to do with the raspberries—maybe they were using them for dye. I had a little transistor radio that I tied around my waist, so I spent the whole day listening to it, moving it between the radio stations as we did in those distant days when Lloyd Melville was not even a glint in his parents’ eyes. I remember the power of the incentive, because the money was mine at the end of the day. I could spend it on anything I chose. I can tell you now that I thank heaven that I was able to learn those valuable lessons in the berry fields of Angus. Sometimes, work is not exactly what you would choose it to be, but there is a nobility in work, and the reward is the reward. I learned to turn up, keep going and finish the job.
I introduce this as a side note to the debate, but I think that it is relevant. I regret that many young people today—including Lloyd Melville, apparently—have fewer opportunities to get that first experience of work through things such as Saturday jobs and holiday jobs, including going to the berries. I am sure that other members to my left will not agree with this, but I believe that, in many cases, we have made it too difficult for employers to give teenagers those first few hours of responsibility and independence that that kind of work gives.
I am a bit confused, because the clock is not showing how long I have been speaking. I think that that means that I can speak for as long as I like.
That is not correct, Mr Kerr, and you have already had four minutes.
Surely not.
I understand that the clock was not set.
In that case, I will conclude by asking the Minister some questions. I did not know what the time was, so I hope that you will allow me some leeway, Presiding Officer. I would not have rambled on if I had known what time I had left, although rambling on is my speaking style.
Mr Kerr, you have four minutes, like everybody else.
I want to ask the minister directly about the support that the sector needs, particularly around capital support, to help growers expand and improve productivity, including through polytunnels, irrigation and cold storage. Lloyd Melville mentioned automation, along with new robotics technology, which I think is important.
If I had had more time, I would have talked about this issue, but I will just ask whether the minister will join me in doing what I did in my previous elected role and press the United Kingdom Government for a flexible seasonal workers system, with growers being able to recruit through a wider range of Government-approved scheme operators. There is a very narrow choice at the minute.
Will the Minister work with retailers to encourage—
Mr Kerr, you have had five and a half minutes now, because you started at eight minutes past. If you could bring your remarks to a conclusion, that would be helpful.
I will.
Will the minister work with retailers to encourage longer-term purchasing agreements, so that growers can have confidence to invest? Further—this is important, so I hope that the minister is listening—will the Government reconsider its position on precision breeding? The James Hutton Institute was mentioned, and we have world-leading science happening there. The Scottish Government needs to stop denying the science and understand the difference between gene editing and gene modification, because this is a sector that will benefit enormously from the outstanding research that is being conducted at the James Hutton Institute.
Thank you for your forbearance, Presiding Officer. I am sorry that I mentioned the clock at all.
18:15
I was immediately impressed by Lloyd Melville when he joined the Parliament, and I was even more impressed when he joined me as deputy convener of the Transport Committee. However, this evening, everything he said was utter tosh. His suggestion that Angus berries are better than Fife berries just means that he is going to have to leave the committee, as I have no confidence in him any more.
A few years ago, as an MSP, I was fortunate enough to be able to do a day’s work experience at Easter Grangemuir farm, outside Pittenweem. I joined the Romanians, Ukrainians and people from other parts of eastern Europe and beyond to pick berries for the day—it was on the raised beds, so I did not have to bend my back. I was proud that, after my two-hour session, I had collected four big trays. Then I went to speak to the Ukrainians and Romanians, and they said that they had done 25 times as much. Those people had a ferocious work rate and were keen, because the more they picked, the more they earned. They were working incredibly hard and they were delighted to be here.
I want to address Maggie Chapman’s point. I think that any allegations of poor accommodation and mistreatment should be investigated. That should, of course, be the case. However, just as Maggie Chapman urges us not to generalise in other areas of political debate, I think that we should do the same in this sector, because the fruit farms that I visit are outstanding. They provide good accommodation for their workers and good-quality goods for the supermarkets.
There is no doubt that the sector is under stress. A number of fruit farms have closed in recent years or have shrunk their production.
The sector has changed dramatically from when I was a boy. My dad was a grocer, so I never got the opportunity to work in the fields, picking berries or doing the foraging. At that point, there was a shorter season—maybe about six weeks—whereas it now goes on for months, because farmers have invested massively in tunnels that are heated and in the installation of raised beds. All of that is expensive and, if farmers cannot get the workers to pick the berries, all of that investment goes to waste. However, farmers’ confidence that they will be able to do so had a hole knocked in it by the previous UK Government’s seasonal agricultural workers scheme restrictions, particularly in the post-Brexit and post-pandemic period, when some people went home and did not come back. Many fruit farms have shrunk their production as a result. We should find ways of getting more workers to come and pick the good-quality produce from Fife—Fife, in particular, has good quality produce; that is less the case in Angus.
I say this with a certain amount of trepidation, but the Agricultural Wages Board adds some extra complications and red tape to a system in which we already have good-quality standards.
The point that Willie Rennie has just made touches on the point that Maggie Chapman made. I have had this debate about the Agricultural Wages Board with members of the soft fruit sector. When I was a shepherd, that was the thing that protected me, because there was nobody else doing it on my behalf. As an employer, I know that the standards that it sets must be adhered to. I get the difficulty that can be caused in terms of people working time and a half or time and a quarter, but those issues can be worked around. However, under no circumstances should we be taking away the guarantee that those workers will be properly paid and respected for what they do.
If I can say this delicately, when Jim Fairlie was a shepherd we did not have the standards that we have now, with minimum wages and other protections for workers. My only suggestion is that we should consider that we have perhaps moved on from those times. I am digging a hole here, so I will not go any further.
My final point is that I would like the minister to look into the work that Fife farmers are doing on regionally integrated food economics. They have applied for some funding to do research work as part of a number of pilots across the UK to get more integrated economies in the area of agricultural produce. That work has been led by Toby Anstruther, who is a landowner in my constituency. I think that that work goes together with the points that I made earlier about getting good-quality local food into our local schools, which I know is something that the minister has been working on, so I hope that he will get behind that initiative.
Due to the number of members who wish to speak in the debate, I am minded to accept a motion without notice, under rule 8.14.3 of standing orders, to extend the debate by up to 30 minutes.
Motion moved,
That, under Rule 8.14.3, the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes.—[Lloyd Melville]
Motion agreed to.
18:20
I am delighted to speak in the debate and to support the motion lodged by Lloyd Melville, which highlights Scotland’s soft fruit sector. The motion highlights that 2,000 hectares of land in Scotland are devoted to soft fruit production and that soft fruits are a major contribution to Scotland’s agricultural economy.
The motion quite rightly shines a deserving spotlight on Angus. I readily congratulate our neighbours across the Tay for their world-renowned berry production. Angus is certainly the big boy of Scotland’s east coast for soft fruit—its soft fruit belt—but, when it comes to berries, the smaller ones are sometimes the sweetest. While Fife may not have the acres and the tonnage of Angus, being a little bit closer to the sun makes Fife’s berries a little bit sweeter, in my opinion.
The soft fruit sector has a special place in my heart. Unlike Mr Melville, but like many kingdom of Fife residents, one of my first jobs was as a summer berry picker, picking strawberries and raspberries. I am sure that Mr Melville will forgive me if I use some of his time to remind members that, in the kingdom of Fife, including my own Kirkcaldy constituency, we boast a soft fruit sector that is every bit as vibrant, innovative and essential to Scotland’s agricultural story. The kingdom has around 225 hectares of soft fruit, of which 125 hectares—just over half—is dedicated to strawberries, with blueberries and raspberries accounting for 15 per cent each; the remainder is made up of blackberries, blackcurrants and hybrid berries.
The kingdom’s soft fruit growers are spread right across Fife; they include farms such as Easter Grangemuir farm in the east neuk and Fife Fruits in Cooper. What folk do not realise is that several Fife farms are members of Angus Growers. The motion specifically commends Angus Growers, the outstanding producer organisation based in Arbroath, and I whole-heartedly agree with that commendation, especially given the contribution of Fife soft-fruit farmers such as Tom Stockwell of Barnsmuir Farm. That cross-regional collaboration demonstrates that the success of Angus Growers is deeply rooted in Fife soil, showing how interconnected our regional food economies truly are.
For other soft fruit farms, such as Woodbank farm on Standing Stane Road, in my own constituency of Kirkcaldy, selling soft fruit direct at the farm gates is a vital part of the farm economy and provides a vital link to the local community. Local bakeries, cafes and hospitality businesses across Kirkcaldy and Fife take immense pride in sourcing Fife berries for their summer menus, proving that rural production directly feeds urban high street prosperity.
Beyond our local fields, I wish to highlight Scotland’s research and development role, which underpins not just Scotland’s soft fruit industry but the global soft fruit industry. Many commercial imported soft fruit varieties were developed in Scotland, including the Glen series of raspberries, the Loch Ness blackberry and the Ben series of blackcurrants, which dominate global production. We cannot forget the hybrids such as the tayberry and the loganberry. All those soft fruit varieties were developed and grown here, in Scotland, and they are examples of Scotland’s scientific soft power.
It is crucial that Scotland continues to be at the forefront of agriculture research and development. However, as the motion rightly notes, we must not romanticise the sector to the point of ignoring the steep challenges that our growers face. First and foremost, there is the issue of seasonal labour. Berry picking is a skilled, labour-intensive job that demands a reliable workforce during an intense harvest window. Woodbank farm, just outside Kirkcaldy, employs 100 workers at its peak production time. Many of them come from eastern Europe—from countries such as Romania, Bulgaria and Lithuania—and they live on site. However, post-Brexit immigration restrictions and bureaucratic hurdles with seasonal worker visa schemes continue to place immense stress on producers.
Secondly, growers are grappling with severe cost inflation affecting energy, fertiliser, packaging and logistics, alongside increasingly unpredictable climate patterns that bring unexpected frost, heatwaves and torrential summer rain. At the same time, farm-gate prices often fail to reflect those skyrocketing input costs. We must call for major supermarket retailers to treat primary producers fairly, ensuring that margins cover the true costs of sustainable local production.
Scotland’s soft fruit sector is far more than just a cornerstone of our agricultural economy; it is a proud symbol of our region’s heritage, our scientific innovation and our local communities. From the fields of Fife and Angus to the dinner tables around the world, our growers deliver exceptional produce against increasingly difficult odds.
I call Tim Eagle. You have up to four minutes.
18:25
I will try to keep within that timeframe.
There is not much that flusters Stephen Kerr, but apparently the humble berry is good enough to do that, and what a resounding speech it was. There is not much that I can disagree with tonight, to be honest, and I thank Lloyd Melville for securing the debate.
I echo Willie Rennie’s important comments to Maggie Chapman. If there is a question of something going wrong on a farm, we must look into that, but I would not want anyone to take away the impression that this is not an incredible sector when it comes to Scotland’s produce, as it is doing amazing work.
I am not from Angus myself—
Shame! [Laughter.]
—so I did not pick the berries as a youngster. I have not actually visited one of the berry farms, but it is something that I would love to do at some point. I have driven through the area many times and I have been involved in agriculture for a long time, so I am well aware of the industry.
Earlier, I was looking up some of the great examples of innovation in the sector. My understanding is that the sector is now using drones in some cases for precision pollination, and I believe that robotics are helping to deal with crop diseases. There are even new varieties after years of extensive breeding programmes. That is incredible, and we are doing all of that in the heart of Scotland.
We have spoken about Angus, which is great, and we have spoken about Fife, which is okay, but we have not yet spoken about the Highlands and Islands. The Highlands and Islands will be the future of the berry sector, surely, because we produce great food. I love debates like this one, because we all get very territorial about the areas of Scotland that matter to us. In the Highlands and Islands, we have a combination of great produce, with plenty of jams and preserves and soft fruits coming on, such as Caithness Summer Fruits, Wester Hardmuir fruit farm, Black Isle Berries and Balnain blueberries. I am sure that there are many more that I could mention.
The important point is that it does not stop there for us in Scotland. I have disagreed with the minister on many things since I have come to the Parliament, but the one thing that I stand shoulder to shoulder with the minister on is that Scotland produces some incredible food and drink, including seafood from around our wonderful nation, beef and lamb, cheeses and whisky—the dram. That is impressive, and we should be very proud of that. That combination of outstanding natural produce and innovative businesses gives Scotland a food and drink industry that we should be truly proud of.
The real reason why I am here is not only to commend the great and humble berry but to plead with the minister—we have had this conversation before—to do more to ensure that public procurement in Scotland recognises the great assets that we have. We should make sure that there are punnets of blueberries and strawberries in every hospital and school throughout the country, and, over the five years of this parliamentary session, we should make sure that that becomes a reality.
18:28
I thank Lloyd Melville for securing a debate on what is an important industry for his constituency and for Scotland.
Going by the contributions so far, I am clearly not the only one who gets excited when the first Scottish strawberries and raspberries hit the supermarket shelves. The flavour and quality of Scottish berries are surely unsurpassed, but I will not get into the debate about which area produces the best ones.
There is no debate. [Laughter.]
I am not the greenest-fingered crofter—I stick to things that are a bit woollier—but I have some blackcurrant bushes in my back garden that seem to grow despite my best efforts, and I enjoyed a small crop from them earlier this summer.
Other crofters in my constituency who are better at growing things have found great success with the use of Polycrubs and other polycarbonate tunnels that extend the growing season and the possibilities for soft fruit production in our islands, where the weather conditions can limit the possibilities and limit the use of conventional tunnels, which have a tendency to blow away.
More food being grown and consumed locally is something to which we should aspire. The crofting township that I come from would have been close to self-sufficient 100 years ago, with vegetables, potatoes, dairy products and, of course, its own meat all being produced locally. Although those days will not return any time soon, the Polycrubs have increased the amount of fruit and vegetables that is grown in our islands.
Going back to berries, I am thankful that our commercial soft fruit growers are much more skilled than I am. I understand that there was a bumper crop last year and that this year has followed the trend. The importance of soft fruit, which makes an estimated contribution of £188 million to the Scottish economy, is not insignificant. In addition, there are exciting opportunities around agritourism, and our soft fruit industry may have led the way in that area with pick-your-own farms. I have fun memories of visiting those attractions on family holidays to the mainland as a child, and I have no doubt that there is room for growth in agritourism going forward.
Of course, the sector is not without its challenges. As we have already heard in the debate, access to labour is never far from those conversations. It is right that the UK Government has taken a pragmatic view on that, with a five-year extension to the seasonal workers visa scheme. Although I have no doubt that elements of it could be streamlined to work better and that there are areas in which further flexibility would be welcome, it is an important element of ensuring that soft fruit growers are able to access the labour that they need to meet the demands of their business.
We have had a good, respectful, and consensual debate. The member will be aware that Scotland’s agriculture sector has unique demands compared to those in the rest of the UK. The Prime Minister has set out his willingness to engage on further devolution. In the spirit of co-operation, would the member support calls for a Scotland-specific visa scheme?
I would not support a specific Scottish visa scheme, but I think that UK ministers should be engaging with Scottish ministers on the unique needs of the sector in Scotland and exploring where those needs are shared with other parts of the agriculture sector across the UK. The member spoke about the consensual nature of the debate, which should spill over into those discussions.
When we talk about workers and the need for labour, the way that those workers are treated is important. It is essential to ensure that they receive good pay and good living conditions. As we have heard in the debate, although few and far between, there are some isolated examples of those conditions falling short in the sector. One example is too many.
In closing, I thank Lloyd Melville for securing the motion for debate. I look forward to hearing the minister’s response, in closing, to the member’s ask about procurement. I also thank the soft fruit growers who are in the public gallery. I wish them well for the remainder of the season and look forward to a productive 2027.
18:32
I have no idea how I will respond to the debate, because I have so many notes written down, but I will do my best. If there was ever a debate that I am delighted to respond to, it is this debate from Lloyd Melville about the soft fruit sector, because I am absolutely passionate about it. I thank Lloyd Melville for securing the motion for debate.
However, making the claim that Angus is the best berry producing area in Scotland is completely off the charts. Willie Rennie is talking absolute nonsense, because it is undoubtedly Perthshire—that is a fact. We only have to listen to “The Berry Fields of Blair”, written by a wonderful old woman, Belle Stewart, and made famous by Hamish Henderson.
Minister, could you look to the front, so that your remarks are on the record?
I am not sure whether I want that on the record. [Laughter.]
The point that I was making is that we have a phenomenal heritage of berry picking in Scotland. We should all get behind it and celebrate it, despite the little bit of banter between Fife, Angus and Perthshire.
We used to have berry fields from the Lothians to Fife, Perthshire, Angus and Aberdeenshire. That area has dwindled and gotten smaller over the years, which is a pity but demonstrates the resilience of those who are still in the sector. The producer organisations have done some work to capture the fantastic new technologies that are available to the sector. To answer one of Stephen Kerr’s many questions, the Government supports the sector through the producer organisations, in order to allow people to work together and collaborate, and to deliver the technology that has allowed the industry to flourish.
I was supposed to be recognising the importance of Lloyd Melville’s motion. Calum Kerr needed to leave, but, before he did, he said to me, “Isn’t it great what Lloyd has managed to bring to the Parliament today? He boasted that he is so young that he is slightly green. Imagine how far he will go when he ripens.” [Laughter.] Those were Calum Kerr’s words; I do not take responsibility for them, but I deliver them on his behalf to Lloyd Melville.
On a serious point, the soft fruit sector is one of our success stories. It contributes more than £188 million to our economy despite the many challenges that we have talked about in this debate, such as the labour shortages that are a direct result of Brexit. I found it odd that Stephen Kerr asked us to talk to the UK Government, given that it was his UK Government that brought in Brexit in the first place and that did what it did to wages in the seasonal agricultural sector.
I am sure that the minister listened to my speech. When I was an MP, I lobbied, along with other Scottish Conservative colleagues, to make the arrangements more flexible, because I understood the restrictions. That does not mean that I do not support Brexit; it means that we just need to get this right.
While I am on my feet, I will add that I hope that the minister will also address the issue of gene editing and give his support to the James Hutton Institute, of which I hope that he is a champion.
I will come back to the point about gene editing, but Stephen Kerr’s other point does not remove the fact that he supported a Government that made it a lot harder for the berry industry to get the people that it needs.
Despite the challenges—and there are many challenges—the sector has significantly grown its output throughout the past 20 years. That growth has been driven by steadily increasing demand for soft fruit, and that demand has been driven by soft fruit being such a quality product—not just here, but across the UK as well. So far in 2026, Scottish producers have already exported nearly 800 tonnes of soft fruit to countries around the world, which is 80 per cent more than they did in 2025. The quality of our produce is being celebrated and enjoyed internationally, from the tennis matches at Wimbledon to cities in Saudi Arabia.
We know that our climate is changing, but fruit producers have led the way in adapting to the challenges that are posed by climate change by investing in water storage lagoons and drip irrigation, which allow them to continue production during dry summers, and by exploring sustainable growing materials to reduce their reliance on peat. I have already mentioned the fruit and veg aid scheme, which allows the berry sector to continue to make such investments.
None of that success would be possible without the expertise that comes from the horticulture sector. That includes dedicated passionate growers, plant breeders and the researchers in our scientific institutes, including the example that Mr Kerr just talked about. They work tirelessly to bring new varieties to the market and to support the sector in facing the changing climate.
I am old enough to have picked berries as a boy, which we did to pay for our school uniforms. We did not get to spend that money—unlike Stephen Kerr—because we came from a rough area. There was a type of berry in the area at that time called Glen Clova. Those berries were beautiful, big and juicy, but they had spines that were there to stop you getting your hands on them, and you would rip your arms to bits by picking the Glen Clova. I am glad that technology has managed to get rid of some of the barriers to actually picking our fabulous fruit.
I have always been a huge supporter of the soft fruit sector, and I am proud to promote it as much as I can. In 2025, we launched the berries of Scotland campaign at the Royal Highland Show. That campaign was a collaboration between the Scottish Government, Scotland Food & Drink and the berry growers of Scotland, and we dedicated a stall at the Highland Show to showcasing the sector. Since then, Scotland Food & Drink has worked with producers to develop short films and marketing campaigns to highlight specific growers and encourage the public to enjoy more of the quality soft fruit that is grown in Scotland.
That brings me to the public sector food procurement task force that I have just established, which is chaired by Assist FM and NFU Scotland. That task force will look at different ways in which we can get more Scottish produce into schools, colleges, hospitals and prisons, as well as the plans that will be developed as a result of the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022. All of those things tie together to get as much local produce into the system as we can. I hope that that answers some of the questions that were raised.
As I said, as I grew up, I was picking berries to pay for our school uniforms. One of the other great things that we have now is frames. When I was picking strawberries as a boy, they were on the ground and, other than tattie picking, there was nothing more back breaking than picking strawberries from the ground.
I believe that there is genuinely further scope for us to drive the soft fruit sector. I agree with Tim Eagle that our beef, lamb, pork, venison, seafood, gin and whisky are global brands. Berries should be right up there with all of those products to make Scotland a destination for agritourism and food tourism—that is so important to Scotland. Would it not be fantastic if we could see the celebration of the Scottish berry season right here and right across Scotland? They have a Beaujolais nouveau festival in France. Why should we not have the same thing in Scotland for our berry sector?
I want us to be bold and ambitious in promoting our soft fruit sector, much as we are in promoting our whiskies and our other food. We should tap into the heritage that Kirsten Oswald talked about—for example, I talked about “The Berry Fields of Blair”, which was written by Belle Stewart and made famous by Hamish Henderson. We should also look at the science that is behind all of the growing that is going on in Scotland.
There is so much to talk about with the berry sector, and I am very pleased to have responded to the debate. I congratulate Lloyd Melville on bringing it forward.
Meeting closed at 18:41.
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